The Paraguay School in El Paraiso Verde

Our Paraguay school here in Paraiso Verde currently has about 20 students between the ages of 6 and 16.

We are a pure settler initiative, i.e. parents and teachers agree on the organizational and financial framework under which teaching takes place. There is also a lively exchange between parents and teachers in terms of content, where this is desired.

Reljuv S.A. provides the building and contributes the operating and maintenance costs of the building and finances three Paraguayan teachers who teach Spanish with us and help us gain an understanding of the country and its culture.

The teaching staff is composed of -generally- studied professionals in their field, who in some cases also have pedagogical training. The economic situation of the school does not yet allow it to live on a teacher’s salary, i.e. all teachers do this mainly out of love for the children and joy in working with them.

In order to improve the economic situation, we have begun to develop the school more and more also as an essential, spiritual center of our community, where lectures, also adult education, concerts and other events take place, and the financial support is gradually also borne by the whole community.

We strive for the children to open up new learning contents and areas of experience with joy, actively and in social togetherness. When critical, independent young people with a sense of right and wrong and an ethical (honest) basic attitude enter a world full of confidence, which is not even foreseeable today, we have reached our goal.

Children who are able to acquire knowledge independently and put it into practice require a whole bouquet of qualities and abilities:

The courage and perseverance (will) to pursue self-imposed goals and plans with deliberation but also with vigor, even when difficulties and resistance arise a good feeling for oneself (life plan) and empathy for others (feeling), in order to be able to react emotionally adequately to the current circumstances of life in terms of time and space the practical and mental mastery of the cultural techniques of our modern everyday life (thinking), which are necessary for the independent acquisition of new knowledge and skills the mentally clear and logical development of the experiences made or information received, in order to form a well-founded, unagitated and above all own judgement, without uncritically following real or apparent authorities.

Therefore, all these aspects in their interrelation with each other are the focus of our efforts.

The Spanish language is taught by Paraguayan teachers. The subjects English and German at the moment are still taught by German teachers, although there is also an effort to find native teachers in English.

The internationality of the community in EPV enables and requires the multilingualism of its members. We want to enable young people to be able to feed themselves, to move in the nature surrounding them with an appreciative understanding, and to carry out a wide range of manual activities.

The older students should be enabled not only to develop a project idea, but also to plan, organize and ultimately carry out its implementation.

The presentation of the project results in free speech in front of an audience is just as much a part of the targeted skills as artistic performances according to the children’s inclinations and talents. For us, artistic activities are not a purely aesthetic end in themselves, but effective, personality-forming experiences whose value cannot be directly determined by the results of the performance.

We respect the children’s innate inclinations, try to recognize and foster them, thus encouraging them on the way to finding and pursuing their goals in life.

Here is the plan of the school:

And here are photos of the finished school: